


your brother's keeper

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Family, Gen, POV Second Person, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 12:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12887703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Death looks out for her younger brother.





	1. tactile

Dream would say, perhaps, that it is not in the nature of the Endless to be tactile. He would say that it is a very human thing, to draw comfort from touch. He would smile his impenetrable half-smile, shake his head, and stare with eyes like the void, or perhaps like deep space, because if you looked closely you could see stars.

Yes, it would be just like Dream to say that, and it would be just like you to laugh, and call him a hypocrite, and then lean up on your toes and kiss his cheek when he scowls.

He is a hypocrite, and a liar, because the Endless are so interlaced with humanity, wear such human forms, that it would be incredibly difficult (though Destiny has accomplished it) to not eventually weave parts of humanity into themselves.

So you call your brother a liar, and you kiss his cheek, take his hand, press your palm into the small of his back, and he cannot help the way the tension slips out of his shoulders. He doesn’t look at you, stubborn and cold, hiding in the folds of his cloak.

(You have learned to read his moods from what he wears; learned to see vulnerability when he is draped in too much cloth, power when flames dance along the edges, a hidden nervous tension when the cloak becomes a coat, exhaustion and grief when he abandons it altogether, stands shivering and unmasked.)

He is brittle, fragile, so you don’t pry, though you could. You are family — it is in your nature, all of you, sisters and brothers and siblings, to have the power to harm each other. But it is also in your nature to love each other, and though both are knives through your brother, you would choose the latter over the former any day.

“Come back to my realm with me,” you ask your brother, and he nods, a little bemused and a little vulnerable, and you link arms with him and take him back to what you might call your home, which looks like a human’s apartment, but infinitely more cluttered, because there is infinite space. Dream picks things up and puts them down and his cloak has become a leather jacket, which means comfort, and his feet are bare, which means home.

You make tea and glare at him until he dutifully sips from the mug you hand to him. He is perched on the counter, legs crossed at the ankle, smiling at you, that thin, inscrutable smile. He looks happy, you think. You sit next to him, lean into his side, and drink your tea, elbowing him into drinking his.

Dream would say it is not in the nature of the Endless to be tactile, but you would say that you don’t really  _ have  _ natures, you’re just points of view, personifications of concepts. You would say that, maybe because of humanity, maybe not, sometimes even the King of Dreams needs to be hugged by his older sister. You think, privately, that he, grudgingly, would agree.


	2. comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after the Brief Lives arc.

It falls to you to comfort him, when the worlds of silk and spun sugar and promises he builds for himself come crashing down. To you - who knows him best and yet not at all.

He is seated, and you are glad of that, because he is taller than you, and it is difficult to hold him when he is standing, tall and statuesque and still. His face is buried in one thin, pale hand.

You wrap your arms around his thin shoulders from behind, rest your chin on his head. He is shaking, or maybe just shivering - the chamber is cold, and his cloak has been abandoned for more simple, modern clothes.

His hand slips from his face, wraps around your wrist. You watch the muscles of his arm tense, like he is going to move, jerk, throw you off, and then you feel him relax, lean, very slightly, into you.

It falls to you to comfort him, and for once, he allows it.

"Brother," you say, and he makes a wounded sound, somewhere deep in his throat. You hold him tighter, sinking down to perch on the arm of the chair. The shaking stops, resumes, lessens. His skin is cold.

"Sister," he replies, in a broken voice that makes the breath you do not need but have anyway catch. "Sister, tell me-"

"Shh..." you hush him, hold him tighter still, and his nails bite into your skin. He knows, already, anything you could tell him, anything he could ask. "I'm here."

He knows that, but you tell him anyway, because it's something that he needs to hear. He can fill in the blanks, can draw the _you're not alone_ and the _you are loved_ and the _you are not blamed_ from your voice. You know he does, because his grip changes, turns your hand so he can kiss your knuckles.

You rest your forehead on his shoulder and rock, back and forth and back and forth, and time drains away around you. The King of Dreams does not sleep, but he rests, turning slightly so he's curled against you, instead of you around and over him.

Morpheus, your little brother, lets himself be rocked into a silence you would call sleep, if not for the tremors.


End file.
